


The Gates of Janus

by gloria_scott



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloria_scott/pseuds/gloria_scott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moriarty and Sherlock are two sides of the same coin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gates of Janus

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Originally written for [](http://thegameison-sh.livejournal.com/profile)[**thegameison_sh**](http://thegameison-sh.livejournal.com/)  Challenge #3 (Cycle 3).
> 
> 2) The last half of the final line comes from the poem Postscript by Joan Margarit, translated by Anna Crowe, as it appears in LIGHT OFF WATER: XXV CATALAN POEMS, 1978-2002.

We are one, love, though you don’t even know my name…yet. Two aspects of a coin forged in fire and cast in golden brilliance. You are my twin – the evil one. Don’t laugh! We are each of us the hero in our own tale, and I’ve got the pen on this one, dearest. Ever the studious one, your pocket magnified eyes are firmly fixed on what is in front of you – dust and ashes and boot prints and dear god how fucking boring! All the while my eyes are firmly fixed upon the future. I see what’s coming because I create it.

Is that cheating? Ask me if I care.

Oh, what a pair we’d make if only you could elevate your gaze from the mind-numbing minutiae and see what I see. I think you’d like it, mon ami. You’d make your “O” face just for me.

And so it’s come to this.

The Gates of Janus have been opened and we are at war, though word has yet to reach you. Patience, grasshopper, Mercury is on his way. He’s not as fleet of foot as he used to be, what with the aneurism and all. So suit up and arm yourself well. Not with the tired old war horse of a copper, or the bloated bureaucratic spider sitting amidst his web of cams and cold-war-era spies. Best you just dance upon the sharp edge of your own wits, sweetness.

Other people will only ever let you down – it’s what they do.

My weapon of choice is chaos. It’s such a lovely shade of tempest, it really brings out the color of my eyes, don’t you think? In chaos I will cause an end, and so play midwife to a bloody new beginning. You think you know what this world is, down to the acid content of south bank mud, but you have no idea what this world could be. What we could be.

Not lovers – how eye-scratchingly boring. Enemies are so much more interesting, I know you’d agree, my BFF. Best fiends forever, or at least until one of us falls. But I’m warning you, sweet pea, I’m an all or nothing sort of fellow. If I go down, I’m taking you with me.

I’ve whet my knife and prepared the first of many sacrifices, an augur of the success of this campaign. In time, the rest will come in a dark flow – bodies pulled towards a singular point (me!) by an unyielding force (also me! You see, I’m about as modest as you are, my dear). None that move in your orbit will escape, and when I find the one that holds the key to your cascade chain, I will make a meal of him…or her.

(Just kidding! I’d sooner take home the Humanitarian Citizen Award than you’d take home a mot.)

With the charring of that final sacrifice, I will burn the heart out of you. And when its last light has finally been lost inside a twisted conflagration of blood and flesh and bitter anger, you will be me and I will love you in the darkness.

****

 


End file.
